America was founded on a revolution against England,
yet many Americans now believe the myth that secession was treasonable.
The
Declaration of Independence was, in fact, a declaration of secession.
Its final paragraph declares inarguably the ultimate sovereignty of each
state:

[T]hat these united
colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that
they are absolved of all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states,
they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent
states may of right do.

Following the Declaration of Independence, each
colony established by law the legitimacy of its own sovereignty as a
state. Each one drew up, voted upon, and then ratified its own state
constitution, which declared and defined its sovereignty as a state.
Realizing that they could not survive upon the world stage as thirteen
individual sovereign nations, the states then joined together formally
into a confederation of states, but only for the purposes of negotiating
treaties, waging war, and regulating foreign commerce.

For
those specific purposes the thirteen states adopted the
Articles of Confederation in 1781, thus creating the United States of
America. The Articles of Confederation spelled out clearly where the real
power lay. Article II said, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom,
and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not
by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in
Congress assembled.” The Article also prohibited the secession of any
member state (“the union shall be perpetual,” Article XIII) unless all of
the states agreed to dissolve the Articles.

Six years later, the
Constitutional
Convention was convened in Philadelphia, supposedly to overhaul the
Articles. The delegates in Philadelphia decided to scrap the Articles and
to propose to the states a different charter—the
United
States Constitution. Its purpose was to retain the sovereignty of the
states but to delegate to the United States government a few more powers
than the Articles had granted it. One major difference between the two
charters was that the Constitution made no mention of “perpetual union,”
and it did not contain any prohibition against the secession of states
from the union. The point was raised in the convention: Should there be a
“perpetual union” clause in the Constitution? The delegates voted it down,
and the states were left free to secede under the Constitution, which
remains the U. S. government charter today.

After the election of Thomas Jefferson, the
Federalist Party
in New England was so upset that for more than ten years they plotted to
secede. The party actually held a secession convention in
Hartford,
Connecticut, in 1814. Although they ultimately decided not to leave the
Union, nobody really questioned the fundamental right of secession. In
fact, the leader of the whole movement, Massachusetts Senator Timothy
Pickering, said that secession was the principle of the American
Revolution. Even John Quincy Adams, who was a staunch unionist, said in an
1839 speech about secession that in “dissolving that which can no longer
bind, we would have to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law
of political gravitation to the center.” Likewise, Alexander Hamilton
said, “to coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever
devised.” These men, and many others, understood that there was a right of
secession, and that the federal government would have no right to force
anybody to remain in the Union.

Some people
see the Confederates as traitors to their nation because many Confederate
leaders swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States
when joining the United States Army. However, at that time people were
citizens of individual states that were members of the United States,
so that when a state seceded, the citizens of that state were no longer
affiliated with the national government. Remember, the Constitution did
not create an all-powerful national democracy, but rather a confederation
of sovereign states. The existence of the Electoral College, the
Bill of Rights, and the
United States Senate clearly shows this, and although it is frequently
ignored, the 10th Amendment specifically states that the rights not given
to the federal government are the rights of the states and of the people.
But if states do not have the right to secede, they have no rights at all.
Lincoln’s war destroyed the government of our founding fathers by the
“might makes right” method, a method the Republicans used to quash
Confederates and loyal Democrats alike.

After the war, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, was
arrested and placed in prison prior to a trial. The trial was never held,
because the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Salmon Portland Chase,
informed President Andrew Johnson that if Davis were placed on trial for
treason the United States would lose the case because nothing in the
Constitution forbids secession. That is why no trial of Jefferson Davis
was held, despite the fact that he wanted one.